Do We Belong Here?

“Boy don’t no one care about you or your story”

                In season one of The Wire ‘D’ takes his baby mama out to the nice side of town for dinner and a walk around the harbor, “ya know, acting like we belong here.”  Leading to the question of whether or not they actually belong here. This whole exchange was prompted by D asking “you think they know what I’m about?” Obviously feeling his economic background more than usual ever since they walked in the door D was uncomfortable.  It started by not showing up with a reservation on a Friday night and the only table they could get was right by the kitchen door.  As the evening goes on there are numerous scenes where the waiters treat D like he is new to the fine dining world. For example, the waiter scrapes the crumbs off of the table cloth with his edge and then looks and D saying “For the crumbs sir.” It is an unfamiliar situation for D, he is treated with little respect and he shows signs of becoming flustered. 

                When the couple first sat down in the back corner D asks to be put at one of the tables in the middle of the restaurant but is denied.  Forced to stay in the back by the kitchen, which is normally reserved for families with noisy kids or people that the restaurant doesn’t want in plain sight because they might scare away other customers.  To which his baby mama replies “you should pushed him D” immediately after she says that a waiter walks out of the kitchen bumping D’s elbow.

                Later in this scene D’s baby mama says “Boy no one care about you or your story, your money good right?” Thinking that money can change everything she assumes that because they have the money to eat at that restaurant they belong there like everyone else.  D isn’t on board with this idea; he feels more and more out of place with each exchange with the waiters.  the final exchange proving that he didn’t truly belong there was when the waiter brought out the dessert tray.  D immediately grabs one and hands it to the girl in frustration.  Only to have the waiter response “I’m sorry sir but those are the samples.”  What we see in this scene is the idea that you can take a boy out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the boy. Which is even said by the character Poot later in the series. No matter what D tries in this series he will ultimately be known as the gangsta who grew up on the West side of Baltimore.